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Title: Nozick’s Exercise
Abstract: In Anarchy State and Utopia, Robert Nozick famously proposes an invisible hand explanation of the emergence of the state. In an endnote in his discussion, Nozick invites the reader to complete an Exercise showing that from an original market of private protection agencies, a dominant protective association will emerge given a certain power relation over these agencies. In this paper I propose how one can complete Nozick’s Exercise and discuss the implication of this Exercise for Nozick’s overall invisible hand explanation. I argue that Nozick’s Exercise is part of a Tournament Argument for the emergence of the dominant protective agency, and that the Tournament Argument has interesting similarities to Michele Piccione and Ariel Rubinstein’s analysis of a jungle economy. I also argue that Nozick’s purpose in giving the Exercise is to have the reader appreciate that according to the Tournament Argument, any protective agency or any group of agencies could emerge as the dominant protective agency. I conclude that a satisfactory solution of Nozick’s Exercise shows that Nozick’s Tournament Argument does not fully succeed.
Biography: Peter Vanderschraaf is Professor of Political Economy and Moral Science at the University of Arizona and Director of Undergraduate Studies of the Philosophy, Politics, Economics and Law program. His teaching and research focus on the interactions of moral and political philosophy and game theory.